


All Your Money Won't Another Minute Buy

by treefrogie84



Series: Dust in the Wind [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, I'm mostly just posting this so its no longer hanging over my head, Recreational Drug Use, through season 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 14:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 7,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14451729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treefrogie84/pseuds/treefrogie84
Summary: The thoughts between hunts, the things we don't see on screen. Episode codas and fill-in for every episode of season 5.





	1. Sympathy for the Devil

**Author's Note:**

> This is canon compliant through what we knew as of season 11. Which means its no longer canon-compliant. Oops.  
> Beta read by the ever-amazing [Dorkily](http://dorkilysoulless.tumblr.com) over a year ago. Then I got fed up with this project and didn't touch it. So have a thing so I can call this project done.

Sam hasn’t even begun to process Dean’s sudden appearance before the symbol completes itself, and the room begins to fill with blinding white light. It’s familiar in a way, like how it feels when Cas heals them, but it feels _wrong_. Dirty like how he feels after an intense vision, or after using his powers. At least now he knows why he felt that way. Apparently Hell can corrupt an angel’s very essence.

They’re going to die here, surrounded by fouled grace, sulfur, and spilled blood. Blindly, he reaches for Dean’s arm, holding onto his brother one last time.

A flash, a blink, and they’re on an airplane… that’s crashing? Sam’s not entirely certain this is better, but if his death is his punishment for opening a door that shouldn’t have been opened, at least he’ll go out without sulfur in his nose.

But the plane doesn’t crash. The pilot manages to pull out of the unexpected dive, and after some aggressive turbulence, even miraculously completes an emergency landing. 

No one gives them a second glance as they evacuate with the rest of the passengers. Sam has no idea if they’re on the manifest or not. He doesn’t even know how they got on the plane. As soon as they’re on the ground and doors are open, he pulls Dean away and they make their best effort to get lost in the crowds. 

It’s hours before the adrenaline wears off. Hours spent getting clear of the airport and finding a car they don’t feel too bad about stealing. Hours before it finally sinks in that they’re not going to die today, that the last thing he feels won’t be blood and guilt. Hours before the stink of copper and iron and sulfur fade from their clothes.

When they stop to throw their clothes into the river, Sam’s tempted to follow them. There is no making up for this one. All of this, including Dean ending up in Hell in the first place, is his fault. 

He trusted a demon over his own brother and opened the fucking Cage as a result. 

Fuck.


	2. Good God, Y'all

Dean watches the civilians bed down for the night, trying to hide how close they are to falling apart. He wants to tell them not to bother - he’s seen every variation of panic from every sort of person - but one person breaking down in a panic will just infect them all. Better everyone put on a brave show for their neighbors than have twelve panicked survivors and one war vet with an itchy trigger finger aiming themselves at the door behind him and Ellen.

He checks the salt lines again, the sharpness of his knives, his stock of ammunition. Watches Ellen do the same thing fifteen minutes later. Austin is doing his own routine; it makes sense that anyone who’s had to wait out this sort of situation often enough has one. It looks a lot like Dad’s, and bears a passing resemblance to Dean’s own. A weird thing to bond over, but there it is. 

The night drags on. 

Eventually Austin and Ellen pass out, leaving Dean the only conscious person in the room. He thumbs through the Bible, hoping that even if angels are dicks, God might deign to make an appearance, or at least send some sort of revelation. The folks out there aren’t actually demons, but there could be demons among them. There’s no way to know which without coming close enough for these folks to get hurt.

It’s a neat trick, Dean’s got to give War that. Mass hallucination is easier to control than mass possession. Demons are excellent at following orders as long as those orders fall in line with their own instincts. This? There’s two demons, a handful at most, in town, enough to give everyone else a push when necessary, but that’s it. Few enough to cow into submission if War knows how. 

Everyone else, all the humans, will fall in line until the demons and War are gone. Then they’ll just have to deal with an entire town that tore itself apart for nothing.

If they can make it to morning, he and Ellen can work this out. Find Rufus, Jo, and Sam, get them clued in enough to avoid immediate bloodshed. The key is going to be avoid panic. Once someone in this room panics, everyone will… and he can’t control panicked civilians.


	3. Free to Be You and Me

It was a gradual shift, in that way that dreams have. A summer day spent on the beach with Dean transitions to the church in Massachusetts. Waves lapping at the bed stand while the sky drips down the walls. The walls are bleeding, forming spiralling designs that scream in his ear. Dean’s last voicemail plays on repeat, words splashing out of the waves. And then Jess is on the ceiling, again, screaming while she burns.

Sam flinches away, feels the accusations anyway. He couldn’t save her, never had a chance. He’s been tainted, a walking death trap since before he could walk.

He forces himself awake, but keeps his eyes closed. Another night of nightmares, his failures coming back to haunt him. Sam knows the rotation by heart, every additional failure getting tacked on. Jess and Dean, Dad and Cas, every monster they didn’t catch fast enough, all the slit throats of nameless possession victims.

It’s the smell that makes him open his eyes finally. Artificial coconut where there shouldn’t be any, and a familiar hand on his hip. Sam wants to relax into it, accepting Jess’ presence as a comfort, but this has happened before. 

Her talking to him though, that’s new. A new twist on an old nightmare. Wouldn’t do for this one to become stale.

The quiet he’s found shatters completely as soon as he’s actually and truly awake. He’s a freak. He can build a new life on his own, hide out as a barback, but that’s never going to change. He needs to accept that, needs to accept that anyone he gets close to dies. The quiet flirtation game he’s playing with Lindsey at the bar needs to stop. She has no idea how dangerous he actually is. 

Would probably be best to move on again before he gets someone hurt. 

The scent of coconut remains, a threat and a promise, even after he’s showered and gotten ready for work.


	4. The End

Castiel slowly closes the phone after Dean hangs up and pockets it. Another sign of his diminishment. He falls a little more every day, every use of grace drains him a little more, he will never again be the angel he was created as. He wonders if maybe his brethren were correct to cut his connection to Heaven, to banish him to a life on Earth. 

He is thankful that Heaven cannot alter his bond with Dean, there is no way they can force a replacement. The bond’s not much, not even enough to find Dean, but he takes comfort in the lines running between his grace and Dean’s soul. There’s a peculiar feel to it, not quite prayer, more a subconscious trickle of emotions back and forth. It’s a completely different connection, deeper, than his connection to Heaven. But Castiel has been exiled and cut off, so this bond has become all the more important.

He reaches out along those strands, gently probing Dean’s wellbeing when the connection gutters briefly, as if Dean himself has been suddenly unmoored from this plane. Castiel pushes back the panic, double checks the condition of his vessel. It’s an overreaction; he is fine. There are no additional locks on his vessel or grace. Nothing has changed.

Until he reaches out to Dean. The bond is different, stretched in an unfamiliar way.

It takes seconds to realize what happened. Heaven has pushed Dean into a pocket universe. They found him, despite the sigils carved into his ribs, despite the hex bags warding the Impala. An over the top attempt at coercion, tricking Dean to consent to Heaven’s plans.

Castiel attempts to fly to Dean, bounces back to the universe he left. The pocket feels like Zachariah, but it will expire within a certain timeframe. Nothing to do except wait, and hopefully catch Dean before he agrees to Heaven’s plan.

He fidgets the entire time, the links between them strained and almost… itchy. He’s tempted to meet Dean at his hotel when he returns, but something seems off about that idea. He’ll wait instead, for Dean to return.


	5. Fallen Idols

> “Poor little Dean. All you ever wanted was to be loved by your idol.”

There are times that Dean is desperate to turn back the clock by years. Stop his deal before it starts, prevent Dad’s deal altogether, even go after Dad by himself instead of picking up Sam from Stanford. There are so many times he would make a different course. Time travel doesn’t work like that, but if he could figure out a way…

If he could figure out a way, it would erase himself or Sammy. Mom’s deal started this all. The only way to stop it would be prevent that deal, and he tried that already. He’s never been enough to keep tragedy from hitting his family.

One of the last things Mom told him is that angels were watching over him. She wasn’t wrong. It just wasn’t for the reasons she thought. Angels have been watching over him his entire life, solely so they can manipulate him and ruin his life. They’ve certainly not been hanging around protecting him. Where were they when Dad had stopped trusting him, started reinforcing his orders with his fists?

And now this monster is trying to convince him that love will solve all his problems. God, even Dean’s not that fucked in the head.

Dad loving him. That would solve all his problems. Except, oh yeah, he knows how Dad loved him. Because otherwise, he would have left him behind at some point, wouldn’t have left Sammy to Dean’s care. His love came with bruises at times, but it was always there.

The Leshii is wrong. It’s not Dad’s love that’s missing. It’s his trust. Because he’d lost that when he was ten and never regained it. Until the day he died, Dad never trusted him again. Not the way he trusted Sam. Because that’s how it goes in their family. Useful to keep Sam in line, but not good enough to be a partner.


	6. I Believe the Children Are Our Future

Another kid’s life ruined by demons. Sam has no idea where Jesse’s disappeared to, but the kid’s young enough that he’s in for a rough time anywhere he goes, even if he can alter reality to fit his whim. He’ll have to raise himself.

Just like Sam did, just like Dean did. Maybe Jesse’ll have it better. No monsters after him after all, no Dad handing him a .45 when he’s afraid of the dark. No big brother to watch over him all night when he’s certain the monsters really are out to get him. To keep him away from the human monsters, the ones that look friendly until you’re alone. 

After all, Jesse can warp reality. He’ll always be able to find food and shelter, even a family if he wants one. He won’t need a big brother to keep a loaded shotgun at hand for the first person who comes through the door. 

The thought stops him cold. Had he been warping his reality too, growing up? Been keeping Dean close by simply existing, because he needed someone to care for him? Sam doesn’t have the same sort of ability that Jesse does, but he didn’t have the same sort of powers as Andy or Jake either. No telling what he could have done without thinking about it when he was a kid. Before he knew what was out there, what normal was.

Sam hasn’t missed how Castiel looks at him whenever the subject of his demon blood powers comes up. The other angels are just as frightened of him as Cas is of Jesse. Hell lost track of Jesse. He was powerful enough to cloak himself. But Hell never lost track of Azazel’s ‘children.’ They were weak, only becoming strong enough to pose a threat when fed more demon blood. 

That had been Hell’s plan: dozens of little Antichrists they could find and manipulate and control. Easy targets for Azazel’s games and already primed to take control of the demon army. And Heaven just let them do it.


	7. The Curious Case of Dean Winchester

> “Oh, you mean my legs. Well, I'm just weepin' in my Haagen-Dazs. Idjit.”

Fuck this chair and fuck the demons that stuck him in it. Mid-goddamn-Apocalypse is no time to be holed up at home with his books. He’s old, might be useless, but there’s no way he’s going to spend what time he’s got left here.

There’s something about this case that’s triggering a memory anyway, from years ago. One of the stories Rufus told him about a traveling card game. This is sounding pretty witchy at any rate, and the boys could probably use the backup, even if they won’t admit it.

They are _literally_ in the End of Days, and his boys keep taking run-of-the-mill cases like the clock ain’t ticking. Bobby knows that at least part of it is the uneasy truce they’ve got going on. Dean’s not certain that Sam’s actually kicked the demon blood thing and Sam’s not sure if Dean’s just going to take off. Same old story that breaks up hunting partners all the time, except there’s no time for this bullshit right now.

The news is out that the Winchesters are to blame for the current state of affairs. Bobby’s already had hunters he’s worked with for years hang up on him and the boys have always been more isolated than he is. There isn’t anyone else they _can_ work with.

Bobby’s just coming up with excuses to butt in. He wants to help with this case, wants to stare at something other than his own damn walls, wants to prove that he can still do his fucking job. There may not be any room for old hunters, but he ain’t dead yet. He’s not dying in this mausoleum when some demon gets around to coming after him, not while there’s still work to be done.

At least he has his own transport. It’s a van instead of his old Chevelle, but anything is better than nothing. And the van doesn’t need to be repacked every time. Not after Dean’d put a long weekend into outfitting it into a mobile research library and armory. Time to get moving. Kick this thing in the ass because to fucking _hell_ with all this.


	8. Changing Channels

Dean’d forgotten what hunting the Trickster was like. He did his research after last time, knows that whichever one they keep running into is way more powerful than any trickster anyone else ever dealt with. 

(Sam still doesn’t talk about that Groundhog Day thing in Broward County, but he had nightmares for months afterwards. Still does.)

Dean’s researched, asked around, and come up with nothing. And yeah, tricksters are gods (no demi- about it, Bobby), but they’ve dealt with gods before. The only way a god can be as powerful as this one is if they’re still receiving active worship. Trouble is, all the tricksters that Dean can identify as still having active worshipers have also been staked recently enough that they shouldn’t be able to cause any sort of trouble unless they like to dick each other over in the afterlife.

It doesn’t make sense. No power base, no name, no trinket dropped to identify him. It’s pissing him off. 

So instead of having a solid idea of how to deal with it, they’re just going to walk into the (obvious) trap. Sam’s got this idea that maybe they can ally with it, convince it to side with humanity during the coming apocalypse. It’s the stupidest thing Dean’s heard in forever, but Sam’s always been an optimist, and what else are they going to do? They have no leverage over the thing, no real way to protect themselves against it, let alone anyone else. Cas might have an idea on what’s happening in this town, what the trickster is really, but he hasn’t checked in for days.

(Dean refuses to let that worry push everything else out of his mind. Cas hasn’t missed a check-in yet, he’s fine. The hunt for God isn’t that dangerous. The stone in Dean’s chest has nothing to do with Cas. He’s just a friend, maybe a brother. That this isn’t remotely close to how he feels when Sam is out of touch doesn’t matter. He’s got work to do.)


	9. The Real Ghostbusters

It’s hard to stay out of the way when you’re sharing a car with someone, but Sam’s trying anyway. 

Dean’s been sullen since they left Wellington, probably pissed about Cas’s decision to resume searching for God instead of hanging out for a few days, but he knows better than to say anything about it. Not sober anyway. He doesn’t have a death wish. Hell, Dean’s still pissy about the siren thing last winter. Bringing up a crush that can be seen from space is probably a good way to end up walking the rest of the way to Bobby’s.

They’re a few miles out of Omaha when the Bat-phone buzzes with a text message. Sam wants to ignore it. They’ve been in the car all day, Dean’s a hostile presence in the driver’s seat, and all he wants is a few hours to himself before they have to deal with the next thing. 

One of the (many) downsides of being responsible for the apocalypse is having to answer the fucking phone when it rings.

_> >From: Chuck; EMERGENCY!!! Need you here ASAP!!! Address to follow!!!_

A few seconds later, a second text with an address appears, somewhere in Michigan. Sam sighs, _of course_ Chuck needs them back the other direction. Sam glares at the phone, at Chuck’s name on the screen. This is exactly what they need. Nine hours of backtracking for who the fuck knows what Chuck thinks qualifies as an emergency.

Dean’s already changing lanes to get off at the next off-ramp though. “What now?” he bites out. Clearly several hours of peace have not improved his mood.

“Chuck has some emergency. Claims he needs us on Michigan as soon as we can get there.”

Dean groans before subsiding into mumbles about Chuck’s questionable parentage, directing the car off the highway and into a gas station.

Sam texts back a quick acknowledgment before tossing the phone back into the glove compartment. He waits until they’re stopped before he pulls out the atlas to find the address. It’s faster to look it up on GPS, but Dean likes to see a physical map when planning routes, especially when they’re in a rush.

Dean rolls his eyes when he sees the address from Chuck, but it’s the first sign all day that he’s going to stop being a jerk about the Cas situation. 

Sam runs inside for coffee and snacks while Dean spreads the map over the hood, tracing narrow roads with a finger. Less than twenty minutes and they’re back on the road, heading the other direction.


	10. Abandon All Hope

Ellen may have forgiven them for John’s fuckups and their own, but Dean knows better than to assume he’s welcome in the kitchen with her and Jo. He’s gotten their home burned to the ground, one of their best friends killed, started the run up to the Apocalypse. Forgiven is not anywhere near forgotten. At least they’ve accepted Cas, so he’ll have some place to go tomorrow if (when) this goes tits up. 

He keeps thinking about the alternate universe, or future, or whatever it was that Zach sent him to. How his other self had fucked up so much and just kept digging. 

Helping his brother get anywhere anywhere near Lucifer has got to be the stupidest thing he’s ever agreed to do. He has no idea what circumstances led to Sammy saying yes. Not really. For all he knows this is how it starts. Sam’ll be captured tomorrow and be tortured until he consents and then... 

And Cas is in the kitchen, learning the joys of chemically altered brain function. Because _that’s_ going to end well. Dean can see the starch leaching out Cas’s spine, is watching him become more and more human. He thought that’s what he wanted, but now? There’s no way this is going to end with anything but a fully human stoner cult leader hosting daily orgies.

This is a nightmare. This is, straight up, something out of a nightmare. 

Dean looks away from the kitchen, drags his eyes back to the Colt and the maps he’s got spread out on Bobby’s desk. He’s already cleaned and oiled the Colt, as close to mint condition as he can get a 150 year old gun. The maps don’t offer much reassurance this isn’t a nightmare or trap: demon signs have become scarcer and scarcer of the past few months. But now the area around Carthage, Missouri is showing every sign of demon activity he’s ever heard of and then some. Missing people, out of season storms, weeping statues… all of it.

He’d offer up a prayer for the safety of his family if he thought it’d do any good. He knows how this ends, either now or in five years. It ends with his family scattered or dead, possessed or fallen. Years of terror at his brother’s hands. It’s not a prayer he’s offering up and has been reciting for days now. It’s curses and invective with exhausted hopeless fears.


	11. Sam, Interrupted

Sam leans back in the seat of the Impala, exhausted and still fighting the last of the lethargy from the meds. He’s completely drained. The fight with the wraith, the past couple of days of baring his soul in therapy (but not too much, can’t scare the civilians), the last several years… all of it has cascaded onto his head, all at once. And Dean’s got his hypermasculine thing going on so he’s going to be useless to talk to until _that_ tapers off. 

Once, just once, he’d like to actually have a conversation with Dean about how awful he feels, emotionally and physically, all the time without Dean immediately shutting it down. 

Of course he’s not going to say yes to Lucifer. Just being in the same room as him makes Sam feel unclean, his flesh crawl, like he’s never going to be able to touch anything good again. Why would he ever willingly inflict that upon himself?

But that doesn’t change the anger. Doesn’t change how alone he feels all the time, even with Dean driving next to him and Cas in the backseat. 

The plan for this hunt, after all, hadn’t involved telling the truth to get committed. He’d opened his mouth with the backstory he and Dean had carefully crafted to ensure at least one of them was in the same ward as Martin and… the truth came spilling out. 

Because the truth is infuriating: he’s responsible for the end of the world. He’s been trying to do better about accepting the blame and everything, but with Jo and Ellen’s death, Dean’s been retreating more and more into himself. Their family is just so small. There’s just no one Sam can trust to unload this on other than him. Certainly not Bobby or Cas-- he’s risked their good graces enough-- and who else does he have?

There’s no one left. No one except Dean and Bobby who remember who he is under all the fuck ups. Even they forget how hard he fucking tries more often than not. They’re pushing the same line of shit Dad always did: he’s allowed to be angry if he needs, but be angry quietly, don’t let it affect the job.


	12. Swap Meat

The last time Sam was acting like this, he was… Actually, no. Sam never acted like some high schooler out of a teen movie. He hadn’t had the chance to do that any more than Dean did. So whatever is going on with Sam, it’s weird.

This isn’t Sam taking the edge off the hunt with a few too many beers. This is Sam at his most stoned. Not speaking up when he finds something about where the witch is buried, wandering off with some chick instead of eating dinner… hell, Sam got a burger instead of a salad, no bitching about the bun or anything. 

The hunt is straightforward enough that Sam’s sudden desire to be stoned throughout isn’t _dangerous_ , but Dean has no idea what caused this. Sam’s the responsible one, the one who insists on honest income if they can get it, the one who asks Dean to re-install seat belts every time he’s doing work on Baby, who rarely gets drunk. 

Dean just wishes Sam would talk to him. Yeah, they can’t retire to some nice cushy mental hospital, but if Sam wants a short break, there’s probably time for that. It’s a good time to go to Vegas if nothing else. Once all this is cleared up, he’ll pull Sam aside and talk to him.

(Unless the pot is a substitute for demon blood. In terms of habits Dean’s not supposed to notice, they’re pretty different, but Dean’s pretty well acquainted with medicating one craving with another. So sure, sub in weed for demon blood. Sam getting high here and there isn’t the end the world.)

But the timing still bothers him, same with the openness. It was one of their unspoken agreements: Sam hides when he smokes up to take the edge off whatever nightmares and visions are knocking him off his game, and Dean pointedly doesn’t see it. It works both ways, too. Sam didn’t say anything when some of his stash disappeared, and Dean didn’t bring Ash back to the motel. But lately? Nightmares are run of the mill and Sam’s not having any visions that Dean’s seen evidence of. Something’s off, and anything sending Sam screaming for the hills like this can’t be good.


	13. The Song Remains the Same

Castiel makes a point of watching Dean’s dreams. It’s...educational, if sometimes a little surreal. His dreams explain why Dean is so wary of reaching out and touching in affection, of admitting how badly he misses his father (even though it’s never John in those dreams, always Bobby or some faceless man), how starved for praise he is. Nightmares, fantasies, true memories, Castiel has seen it all in Dean’s head, even some things that might be fragments of truths. Most of the time, Dean’s mind is open, just a few defenses that can be explained away by a lifetime of habits.

But when angels contact him by invading his mind, Dean’s head is suddenly a very different place: thorny and hostile to any foreign presence. Castiel can simply leave a small warning tendril of Grace along their bond before retreating into his own meditation and thoughts for the night, confident that the reaction will warn him if something goes wrong. It works this time too: as soon as Dean’s dreaming mind catches a hint of someone else, Castiel is aware, ready to defend his charge.

This time it’s Anna, invading for some unknown purpose.

Anna’s Grace is… wrong. It’s not perverted like Lucifer’s has become, but it also isn’t the pure garnet of before she fell. His Grace shattered along the flaws that have been there from the beginning. The cracks in her Grace are different, forcing their way from the surface inwards. They look like pressure cracks, like something came through to force her back together, not realizing she was already whole. 

He is on his feet, ready to take flight before Dean has even woken up to tell him something is wrong, that Anna needs their help. The worry grows when he sees her in person: this is not the commander he followed for millennia, nor is it the young woman who re-ascended to Heaven last year. The focus on killing Sam, on denying Lucifer her rightful vessel… this is not right. Anna cannot be allowed to know where the Winchesters are, not until he has figured out what has happened to warp her Grace and her mind.


	14. My Bloody Valentine

It’s background, most of the time. Same as his caffeine addiction. There’s a demon, and Sam wants to drink its blood. He refuses to do it, but the urge is still there. Sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, but ever-present. He thinks, sometimes, that his dormant powers get a bit more insistent when a reasonably powerful demon is around, like they know how much good that blood could do him, but that’s probably just the psychological addiction, right?

They roll into Plainville and he wants demon blood. 

They sit down to a night of looking at human remains in the morgue and he wants demon blood. 

Hunt down a cupid? Demon blood. 

Pass a strange man in the hall and on the street? The thirst is so bad he’s almost willing to assault the guy in plain view of every camera in the hospital. To hell with being circumspect, Sam wants to bleed the dude dry. Use the power to run Lucifer off forever, that prick Crowley, every demon they come across. 

He shall become Death, destroyer of worlds.

Then the demon is gone, and everything goes down a couple notches. Sam can think again. But it gets worse everytime it happens. By morning, he feels like he did when he was only a month clean. By afternoon, it’s just like when he was still in the throes of detox. He can’t help anyone like this, not when all he wants to do is slit every demon’s throat to get his fix. 

Cas isn’t much better, not with his new fixation on cheeseburgers. Only Dean isn’t craving something. They should fall back, regroup. Get some other hunters in on this, someone to watch Dean’s back. Sam… can’t. Not right now, and doesn’t that feel like the worst parts of the last three years rolled together. Dean needs him, needs him to be whole and healthy, and he’s failing Dean again, with every moment.


	15. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

It’s rare anymore that Bobby gets a decent night’s sleep. Moving from his damn chair to the fucking couch just isn’t worth the effort. Not when he never knows when someone is going to call to be bailed out on some hunt, not when he’s dreaming of happier times every night. He dozes at his desk or in the kitchen instead, surrounded by the relics of a life that’s damn near killed him.

The car crunching on the gravel wakes him. It’s early, less than thirty minutes after dawn, and there is no reason for anyone to be in his yard. Bobby spares a thought for the dog he should have, but can’t convince himself to get. (Who would take her when he eats that bullet? The boys don’t have room for her in their lives and there’s no one in town.) 

The car pauses for a moment and then drives back out. Probably just a wrong turn or finally noticed the closed sign.

But he’s awake now, again, so he might as well start the day. He’d told Chambers he would see what he could dig up about bird shapeshifters before the idiot went charging in there with a kid in tow. Bobby’s knowledge of Brazilian creatures is pretty spotty, but given the information he’s got so far, he’s pretty sure that’s where he needs to start. 

Another hunt, another project, another day of keeping his promise to Dean. Maybe, if they can get through this crisis, he can check out. Set the boys up with the house, let Sam loose on his collections, Dean in the scrapyard. They’re his sons in everything but blood, and all he’s got to leave them is a couple acres of wrecks and a house full of moldy books.

The firm knock at the door interrupts his train of thought. It’s early, too early for unexpected visitors. He pulls a revolver from the drawer next to the fridge before wheeling to the front door, already preparing to tell off the missionaries or whoever thought it was a good idea to knock at someone’s door at eight am. 

“What the hell… Karen?”


	16. Dark Side of the Moon

Dean can only assume that they woke up within minutes of Walt and Roy shooting them. Even if they hadn’t, a motel this sketchy? Chances are nobody’d call the cops until they failed to turn in their key by check out time. 

It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t actually care. Thinking about how long they have until the cops show up is just a convenient distraction from everything he’s avoiding. Because he _really_ doesn’t want to think about everything else. Doesn’t want to think about how much Sammy missed out by being too young to remember Mom. Doesn’t want to think about how they finally had a shot at finding God, only to discover that God doesn’t care. God tossed a sheet over the game and walked away ages ago. 

Dean’s chest goes tight whenever he thinks about how much of this is his fault. If he’d just let Sam die, or to held out longer in Hell, or even just managed to convince Sam that Ruby is bad news, none of this would be happening. 

The world can blame Sam if they want. Dean knows the truth: he’s the one who screwed up raising Sam. Why else would he trust a demon over his brother? It’s nothing he hasn’t thought dozens of times since Sam left for Stanford. He fucked up. He would have known that even if he hadn’t seen Sam’s Heaven, even if Dad hadn’t screamed it in his face when Sam took off.

Dean can’t talk about it. Not yet. He needs the distraction of running away from this hellhole, getting someplace safe before he thinks about what Mom said. Or what her image said. Whatever. He needs to get someplace where he can control how he falls apart when Sam leaves again (why would he want to be tethered to Dean?) and Castiel ditches him to deal with important angel shit. Again.

He can’t even be bothered to care about Walt and Roy right now. So they killed him. Not like it’s the first time he died. If they cross his path again, he’ll deal with them then. But not right now.


	17. 99 Problems

Sam knows that look. The look that only shows up when Dean’s about to do something suicidally reckless. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the fiasco in Blue Earth, and near silent as they drove away from the town. At first, Sam had thought it was because Dean missed Pastor Jim, but the longer it went on, the less likely that looked.

Then Dean disappeared. Didn’t take much with him, just his bag and the Impala, leaving Sam at some shitty chain motel with lots of cars around.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Dean’s doing, why he’s doing it. The real question is where can they catch up to him?

Part of Sam wants to let Dean do it. Dean can take the brunt of the failure and the blame when things go ass up. See how Dean likes being looked at like everything that’s gone wrong is his fault. Sam can’t indulge that part of himself though. Too much relies on them both saying no until they come up with a better plan. Not that there’s any inkling of a better plan in the offing. Everybody just keeps saying there is one. 

They have two of the Horsemen’s rings, with no idea how to use them. They’ve got one (falling) angel willing to help, but can’t even heal them, let alone have enough power left to take down two or three archangels. There’s Bobby, who might know how to fight anything under the sun, but neither Lucifer nor Michael have been under the sun in a very long time. 

And then there’s him and Dean, who’ve both died more times than they can count, and who can’t help but dig the hole a little deeper every time they try to fix things..

Their resources are slim. Without help, they’re never going to win this thing, but Sam doesn’t know where that help is going to come from, except it’s not going to be Michael or Lucifer. Never Michael and never Lucifer. Saving the planet doesn’t mean much if there’s no humanity left to enjoy it.

Sam blows out a breath as he pulls his laptop out. He’s got a pretty good idea for where Dean’s gone, but he’ll need to check the credit card records.


	18. Point of No Return

They’ve locked him in Bobby’s panic room, but they’ll have to let him out eventually. Eventually, he’ll get away from them. Dean won’t call down Heaven here but he will get out. There’s no plan, no sign that anything is going to ever get better. He might as well get this bullshit over with before things can get worse. 

Sam’s addiction will get the better of him again. Castiel will walk out and return to Heaven, or worse, he won’t, and Dean will watch his best (only) friend diminish like one of Tolkien's fucking Elves. Dean’s seen how this ends after all. The other Dean was right. Saying yes is the only way. If he doesn’t, if the Host fucks off to wherever and leaves the field to humanity… everyone he loves will die. 

If he says yes, maybe he can keep a few of them safe.

Bobby, Lisa, Ben. The only people he has left who might miss him and he might be able to protect, three people who will remember him as him instead of the monster he was and will be. The monster he’ll be until the final fight when everything is destroyed.

He’s got a deadline hanging over his head and not a whole lot of people who will give a shit when he’s gone. Asking Heaven to guarantee their safety is probably a fool’s errand, but it’s a better shot than not even trying. Zach and his cronies have already shown how loose their definition of consent is, Dean can’t imagine their definition of safety is much better.

Dean’s going to rely on it anyway. 

Adam’s a civilian. He shouldn’t have to accept Michael’s offer. The kid should be back in Heaven, with his mom, catching a baseball game with Dad, not caught up in this bullshit. There’s no one else who can say yes besides the two of them. So he’s going to take the bullet, like a good big brother. 

He never had a chance to fuck things up with Adam and he’s not going to let it happen now. He’s going to accept his role and Sammy will accept his and Adam will stay in Heaven. Bobby won’t have to worry about him anymore. Cas will be able to go back to his family. Lisa and Ben, a living reminder of what he can never be or have, will have a chance.

Just as soon as he gets out of this hole.


	19. Hammer of the Gods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that tag up there that says canon compliant through season 11? Yeah. Because Season 13 blew this one out of the water.

Sam knows that one of them needs to tell Cas about Gabriel. But how do you even begin to have that conversation? Call up an angel on the burner phone that may or may not have enough minutes, tell him ‘Your non-crap brother saved us and died for his trouble’? Yeah _that’s_ fair and emotionally supportive...

It should be Dean’s responsibility. He’s closer with Cas, has (had?) more in common with Gabriel, but instead he just loaded everything into the car and started driving. Avoidance at its best. This phone call is going to involve feelings, and Dean has been insisting on avoiding those for months now despite the fact that Dean’s feelings are obvious to anyone with eyes. Sam’s pretty sure the crew of the International Space Station can see the crush Dean’s nursing. 

(Which he will be sure to tease Dean about. Later. When the end of the world isn’t at hand.) 

How the fuck do you compose a condolences letter for a goddamned archangel?

Sam’s deliberately trying to avoid thinking about the massacre back at the motel right now. The number of gods killed and power released? The scale alone is insane, and if word gets out that he and Dean were in any way involved in this? Well, they can expect the rest of their lives to be short, bloody, and very, very, painful when whatever gods are left decide to take it out on them. Even feuding families stand up for their own. The best he and Dean can hope for is that the remaining pantheons target Lucifer first, and soon. Without that, they’re completely fucked.


	20. The Devil You Know

If Sam could, he’d draw things out, torture the demon in Brady’s body until it’s felt every bit of pain that Jess did. He’s got a good imagination, and maybe Dean could give him some pointers. Sam can probably come up with a few ways to pass the time. 

Hasn’t he earned the chance to take revenge for Jess, for Brady, for every black-eyed son of a bitch that ever thought they could control him? Lucifer’s destined vessel or not, fuck this. This demon’s been dug into Brady for years. He claims it’s just been since Junior year, but hadn’t Brady had introduced him to Jess in second semester Spanish? Had the demon been lurking inside Brady the entire time?

Killing the demon won’t bring Jess back. It won’t stop the Apocalypse. It won’t be a damn thing except revenge. Who the fuck cares? Sam sure as fuck doesn’t. They need a win, he needs a break, and he’s tired. His entire fucking life has been demons controlling him. No more. Never again. 

This demon is going to die, and Sam’s going to kill it. That’s no question. But it’s only the presence of Brady’s soul that ensures he’s going to do it as quickly as possible. Brady’s an innocent. Whatever pain Sam can inflict, Brady doesn’t deserve to suffer it. Such a small reason. Sam certainly doesn’t care about harming his own soul any more. 

The only way they’re going to get through this is for him to say yes to Lucifer, be the Boy King or whatever Hell has been trying to turn him into all along. If he’s going to be a goddamned prince of Hell, he might as well do as he pleases to the punk ass demon who thought that killing Jess was a good idea. Maybe if Cas could separate Brady from the demon, he’d have his way. Right now though, he can work within his moral limitations.


	21. Two Minutes to Midnight

Dean helps Sam and Cas load the van, watches his family prepare for a suicide run. Cas is most of the way human, Sam’s prepared to say yes to Lucifer, and Bobby only stuck around because of a promise Dean extorted from him. His family is leaving and he’s here, doing the easy job. It’s a nightmare.

He’s watching his family do a job he should be doing. He can count, knows how close they are to the other Lucifer’s prediction of when and where Sam would say yes. But Sam isn’t a kid anymore and they don’t have enough hands to keep him on lockdown while Dean tries to find the last ring.

Not that he knows what to do with the rings once he has all of them. Hopefully, Gabriel’s DVD will magically provide an answer once they have all four. Because everyone’s inspected the rings they currently have and there are no markings on them. Bobby glared when Dean suggested tossing them into the fireplace, but no one had any better ideas either. But nothing had happened when he’d done it. No glowing script in a language no one can read, no random road trip across middle America. (That would be productive, or at least more fun than staring at the damn things.)

Dean wants… the thought trails off before he can complete it. Cas’s human state is too familiar. Every wince of pain whenever they’re slow to get painkillers into him is a frightening reminder of what happens when Dean fucks this up. He wants to soothe the pain himself, keep Cas as far away from painkillers and pot and even alcohol as he possibly can… but there’s no time. Watching Cas trip his way towards humanity the over the last year, he just wants… 

There’s never time. He just needs to suck it up and hope Sam and Bobby can keep Cas in one piece. Just a quick trip to Nevada to commit domestic terrorism, that’s all. Blow up the vaccine for the largest flu outbreak the world has seen in decades, in hope of preventing something far far worse, while he hitches a ride with a fucking demon to find Death.

Yeah. Piece of cake. Nothing can possibly go wrong.


	22. Swan Song

Heaven is not as consumed by chaos as Castiel expected. The hierarchy is ticking right along with Raphael assuming control. Castiel tries to re-assume his old position but it… chafes. He’s seen too much, spent too much time among humanity. And every time Raphael flexes xyr might as the remaining archangel, Cas wants to flee.

Angels have watched him for two years as he tore up the script and became something new. The others are fascinated, gathering to watch him as he completes his assignments, scattering the moment he turns to them. It is uncomfortable to have this level of notoriety among the Host. The last angel who jumped out of their station was Anna and she never returned, not truly. She was never allowed to return, even after reclaiming her Grace. Something, someone, crushed her. 

Perhaps it is something about their garrison. Too many of them are rebels. Anna, Uriel, himself. And now he is the last commander and the most notorious. 

It makes him flee Heaven every time he thinks of it. Every time Raphael tightens the reins on permitted expression, every time another angel secretly comes to him with plans to abandon Heaven in favor of humanity, he flees and walks next to Dean. 

He does not know why he continues to be drawn to Dean, but his presence is comforting, even if Castiel never dares to show himself. He promised Sam that Dean would be able to retire, that he would keep Dean away from hunting, happy and safe with Lisa. 

There is never any sign of Sam, but perhaps he’s just misses him. His bond with Dean aches, but there’s no indication something is wrong. Sam wanted to keep hunting instead of imposing on Dean and Lisa, that’s all. That’s why he’s never there.

Then Raphael demands that Castiel come before all of Heaven and renounce what he has learned on Earth. Announces that Heaven will be launching a new expedition to Hell to free both Michael and Lucifer so the Apocalypse can end properly with “no upstart mud monkeys mucking up the works.”

No. Castiel cannot allow this to happen. Dean has given far too much to be drawn into another fight for the sake of humanity. Castiel cannot fit into the mold he was formed from any longer and that is thanks to Dean. He won’t be party to anyone forcing Dean back into his mold either.

Dean is raking leaves when Crowley appears with his offer. It’s the best solution he’s going to find.


End file.
